Imperfect
by ForeverinMoonlight
Summary: -Forbrydelsen/The Killing, Danish version fic- Perfection is a lie, but the truth is breaking his heart.


_Disclaimer: You know what I'm going to say here - I own nothing to do with Forbrydelsen [The Killing]._

**A/N (Please read)**: Tell me if the rating isn't right - I think it's still a T, but I'm not entirely sure. Also.. Just to emphasise, this is a Forbrydelsen (first series) fic. It's not based off the American version of The Killing (though it could still work with it, I have no idea), but the Danish one. I had only watched not much more than five episodes (I think) of it when I wrote this.. It's set at least after they see Nanna at the morgue (around the time Theis stops for screen wash then goes to the restroom.. does that ring a bell? xD;). I might have taken a couple of minor liberties with this fic (I really don't know..), but I wanted to even just attempt to put the grief that the actors portrayed so powerfully into words. ...But yeah. I'll stop rambling now!

* * *

><p><strong>Imperfect<strong>

_Beautiful_. That was how Pernille had described her, during the drive home from seeing their daughter.

'_Beautiful_'... Yes.

He agreed. He would never deny that. Even _then_, watching as she lay there, silent, undisturbed by the prying eyes of the world. She had always been beautiful, _always_, and still her hair was wild with those curls, silken and aglow as the light hit them.. Features ever fair, an echo of her mother (thankfully) more than him – though even more than that, uniquely brilliant in a way that only she could be. ..And right then, they had been softened in some semblance of peace.

Yes.

She could've been asleep. Resting, and it took him back to years ago (shorter and _so much_ further away than they seemed) when she was young (just young, not _too young_) and he was looking down at her after tucking her in.. Story book to one side and lean down kissing her goodnight; sleep tight, _my little angel_-

How time flew by.

And how it dragged these days, even in a van in a busy, lonely road. He'd joked about being her chauffeur once, as she got older and started threatening to grow up. Always here and there and everywhere, though in hindsight it hadn't been that much (_not enough_), really. She hadn't wanted it to be that way, eager to do this and that and fly off far _far _out of sight away from her parents as she could possibly manage.

_Teenagers_, he'd scoffed, but it was entirely expected. .._Mostly_, entirely expected.

He had expected him and Pernille to have to drive God knows where out to where she was eventually – a University, perhaps (and it would have been the best one for her, he'd have made sure-).. _Anywhere_, just...

Not the morgue.

_Not the morgue_, to see her.. Like _that_.

And she'd looked _beautiful. _Really she had, and as always.. But..

Different.

Her hair was wild with curls – a mess, but an immaculate one. Wild but not free and unruly and she wasn't complaining about them.. Fair features – smooth skin, never this pale; _never _this _cold_ – and her soft expression.. _Peaceful_ expression...

_Peaceful_.

But dead.

An ethereal picture, beauty to the point of perfection. But his daughter wasn't perfect – nobody was, though _she was beautiful_, she was incredible because of her spirit and her life and her laughter and her yelling and her annoyance at his protectiveness and her making fun of his hat and _because_-

She was _Nanna_.

His daughter..

And looking at her body; perfect, _perfect_ and white really did suit her-

It almost killed him.

(_Again_.)

Beautiful, but so goddamn _far away- _not _really_ there just... empty..-

_Dead._

Dead. Yes (nonono_please_NO)_._ Someone.. Someone had..

Someone had _killed _his _little girl_-

_My.. Little.. Girl.._

"Don't worry Dad, Mum said she's an angel now-"

She had wanted to go, everywhere and anywhere just far, _far_ away, but _FUCK_ he was her _father_, and it was a _father's job_ to _PROTECT_ his own kids _no matter what_!

He should've seen this coming.

He should've stopped it happening.

He should've been _there_. He should've...

...He _should've_...

(You can do a million other things, moving mountains not withstanding... A _million things_, but face it.

What could you do about the past?)

Theis liked to think he was a strong man (better that everyone else believed that too). ..It had some truth in it. People compared him to many things – among the most polite being _rock; stone; pillar..._

Pillar.

'Pillar'..

_Hah._ A pillar for the family he would do anything for – if you wanted to try _anything _you would have to deal with him first. _Theis Birk Larsen_. Be sure to remember the name...

Yet.

..It was.. laughable, now. In the blink of an eye his heart had been plunged, slowly, _slo...w...w...wll...ly_ into ice take your time.. build the suspense up and a nod of the head and thenso quickly, _so easily_ a chunk of it had been torn out.

_Left behind – an aching, gaping hole_.

Instant pain; constant pain; _God_ the agony was so much to bear... _So much to shoulder._ Engulfing, swallowing _nothingness _that brought the taste of bile then the _sickness_ so strong and rotting, rotting.. _rotting..._

(It was a maelstrom, the ultimate nightmare and every day; every minute; every _second_ it floored you because of how _real_ it was.)

He was meant to be the 'family pillar'. Sacred duty, warmly accepted, now accompanied by leaden failure.

(_Pure and utter_ – nothing less than he deserved..- No. He deserved to feel _much worse_ for his violation of it; for his _sheer neglect_.)

_Hah. _Tell him. How much support could he be, when he was eroding from the inside? Every single day, Pernille cried, her face such haunted despair, and the boys that had not yet begun to understand, and the mother-in-law that rightly (if _uselessly_) blamed him and the awkward workforce and best friend-

-And he held his wife and hugged his sons and took the blame and the 'sympathy' and the questions and everything with his face carved from granite stone.

_Despite the cracks that showed and his shaking hands and the blank stares, channelling the abject grief that clamoured to be let out from inside his hollow... _hollow_ shell-_

He wanted to cry out or scream or hunt down or hurt or _break _something (_someone_)_,_ but he couldn't he _couldn't_ and then his daughter's beautiful face flashed again in his mind- Again and again and _again and AGAIN_

Nanna..

_Gone, gone, gone gone GONE_

...Dead.

_Dead_.

His little girl.

_Too young._ So young. So perfect.

(_Beautiful_...)

And just like that. For too long (_too short_) a time, again, he-

_Broke._

(Tiny little pieces. Harder to reassemble each time.)


End file.
